You've Only Got One Mother
by tartan robes
Summary: Or have you? Oneshot about Mrs. Hughes and William's relationship throughout the years. Very slight Carson/Hughes as well. Major spoilers for season two!


_i._

"And I've finally found an adequate replacement for Peter." Charles Carson sets down his tea cup.

"Oh?" She takes a small sip, "Someone has finally measured up to your impossible standards?"

"My standards are not _impossible_."

No, the housekeeper thinks, but sometimes you certainly are. She doesn't dare say those words aloud; instead she smiles – slightly – into her reflection.

"And who is our newest addition?"

"William Mason. Rather young, but tall enough, certainly. Whatever competence he might lack, he makes up for enthusiasm."

"This is hardly a glowing report."

"Do I glow frequently, Mrs. Hughes?"

"I just don't like to think you've settled."

But when William Mason – just as young as Charles implied, but, yes, just as tall as well – walks through the back door for the first time, she knows, instantly, Charles didn't settle. There's something she learns from the way he holds things – lightly, carefully, the way he smiles briefly.

He's not perfect. She would, grudgingly, have to admit Thomas is more self-assured, steadier, a more finessed footman. (She finds herself telling William constantly, endlessly to slow down.) But he listens and he learns – he's kind. She finds herself watching him through window panes, around door frames. Is he doing all right? She wonders. Is anyone hassling him? Right or wrong, she's made a favourite out of him and this is a title he'll never lose.

William Mason, she's rather certain, can do no wrong.

_ii._

Through the window, she watches him tap the keys hesitantly. But then, since the room is silent, since he is the only one there, she watches his hands gain confidence, press a little harder. A symphony unfolds beneath them.

She watches him do this, play a little more each day, for weeks.

Once, she walks in. As soon as he hears her – a pointed step, the jangle of keys – he's upright. Syllables spill from his mouth – "Mrs. Hughes! I was just! I!" – and he bolts out the door before she a chance to say a word.

The piano is silent for three days.

But then he comes back and she lingers outside again, careful not to make a sound.

_iii._

"I have to remind William that he is being paid to attend on the family, not their piano."

"Goodness, Mr. Carson, you have quite the vendetta against music."

Charles Carson looks down at his feet for a moment, says nothing.

"I think it's rather nice," she adds, climbing up the stairs.

William Mason pauses at the bottom of the steps. He was always told it was wrong to eavesdrop, but sometimes – surely – it cannot be helped. He beams at Mr. Carson as they pass on the steps and when he passes Mrs. Hughes, he grins even wider.

And she smiles at him, but only once his back is turned.

_iv._

She asks him once if he's homesick, assures him there's nothing wrong with that.

He has somewhere to go back to. She almost envies him for it, for having more than this. For having a mother – her chest tightens – and a father to go home to. Home. She supposes Downton is her home, but it feels wrong thinking that. Downton is Mr. Carson's home, but if it is his, it surely cannot be hers. Downton is where she lives, where she has lived, all year round for ages now. But she isn't sure she'd miss Downton in way she knows William misses his home, his family. (She has come, she realizes sometimes, to think of the staff as her family. This is a weakness, a mistake. Does she not – quietly, silently – criticize Mr. Carson for making the Crawleys into his family?)

(But then, she also realizes, turning over in her sleep, does she not envy him for the very same reason?)

_v._

She can't understand Daisy.

What she sees – what anyone sees – in Thomas she'll never understand. Perhaps, she's willing to concede, he does have a rather handsome face, but who can see it behind that constant veil of smoke? But she doesn't, can't understand the way Daisy looks at William. She'll never understand the way she looks past him.

She tells him for the hundredth time that he can't let Thomas push him around. "Everyone likes you more," she assures him.

"Not everyone."

And then she tells him, without a skipping a beat, 'Then she's a foolish girl and she doesn't deserve you."

None of them deserve him.

"Though, why am I encouraging you? Forget all that – for ten years at least."

(Selfishly, she thinks that if he forgets it all for ten years, then he will be hers for ten more years – at least.)

No, Daisy certainly doesn't deserve him, but she doesn't either.

_vi._

Elsie Hughes stays at Downton for a number of reasons and a handful of people.

William Mason is one of them.

_vii.  
><em>  
>When he comes back to work, his eyes are raw.<p>

"You don't have to be here now," she tells him. "The family's in London, there's not much to be done –"

"I want to be here, Mrs. Hughes. I want to be kept busy."

And so she keeps him busy. She assigns him task after task and rarely gives him a break.

Because, in those lapses between one job and the next, in the moments he pauses, she can't bare the look on his face.

_viii._

She walks up the stairs with him, his knuckles red (and Thomas' face, she's sure, just as bruised).

"You all right?" She asks him, taking his fingers briefly, turning over his palms.

"I'm fine, Mrs. Hughes. I'm better than fine."

"He had it coming, didn't he?"

"You're the one," he smiles slightly, "always telling me to stand up to him."

"Yes," she lets his hands go, "yes, I suppose I am."

Whether it should or it shouldn't, her heart swells with pride.

_ix._

They end up – by her own manipulation – having their half-days off together. She ends up walking next to him towards the village.

"Do you mind if I join you?" And she hopes he doesn't – though he'd be too kind to ever say no – because she wants to be with him, to be there for him. "I think we're going the same way anyway," she mutters. An excuse.

He says nothing, nods faintly.

He turns when they reach the graveyard and she lingers by the fence, watches him cross rows and rows of stone slates, watches him leave flowers before one. She cannot help herself, though she knows it isn't her place. She crosses the field, stands by his side.

Embarrassed, maybe, he tries to hide his tears.

"Shh," she whispers, takes his hand in hers, squeezes it gently.

He collapses into the grass, into the leaves, sobbing (each one breaks her heart). And she kneels at his side, holds him – but not too tightly, always hesitantly, wary. She's crossing so many lines. She's such a fool. He will never, she tells herself, cry for her like he's crying now. But she would cry for him, so she supposes it doesn't matter. She holds him tighter, just by a fraction. It doesn't matter.

_x._

"I'm used to seeing you in a different uniform," she remarks when he shows up, for the first time, as a soldier.

"I think I've grown out of that uniform, Mrs. Hughes," he says with a smile. "For now, at least."

"Yes," she says, biting back a smile of her own – (or tears? she can't tell, not now) – "You've certainly grown up."

_xi.  
><em>  
>It doesn't quite register when she first hears it. <em>Missing<em>. Well, of course he's missing. He's been missing this entire time. He's been missing since he left Downton.

She's missed him.

But at least then he was somewhere, at least he was alive, at least she had known, convinced herself, he was coming back to them (to her) one of these days.

She can't accept that he's gone completely; it wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair.

She holds her chin up, doesn't betray any of this to her staff – she needs to be strong, for them, for him, for herself – but at night she imagines all the places he could be, all the states he could be in. She gives herself nightmares, wakes up trying to reach out, touch his hand, grab him tightly and bring him back.

And there's this horrible ache in her heart. Something missing.

_xii._

_If you were the only boy in the world –_

She thinks Mr. Carson ought to sing more, glances at him out of the corner of her eye. In all the years she's known him – and it has been quite a few – she has never known him to sing. But of course he'd sing for his darling Mary; he'd do anything for her. (Her eyes scan the crowd, taking in every injured face, every missing eye, every burned limb – it would be better if William were one of them than missing. She'd rather have him here, broken, than a ghost anywhere else. Is it selfish of her? Completely.) She feels, suddenly, very weak. She leans towards the butler marginally and – dare she imagine it – she feels him lean in towards her as well. She wonders if she anchored herself here, steadied herself for a moment, would he mind? Would he –

When she sees William's face, she thinks it's a joke, a lie. Her mind is old and falling apart. She must be dreaming. A singing Carson and an intact William, it's all too good to be true.

She doesn't take her eyes off him. The music resumes, Matthew walks down the aisle, takes his place next to Mary, but she doesn't look away – not for a minute – from William.

She finds herself holding Mr. Carson's hand – a test, she tells herself, to see if she's really, truly awake. She's relieved when she feels the weight of his hand (and further relieved when he doesn't pull it away).

To her, she thinks quietly, William Mason is, perhaps all too literally, the only boy in the world.

_xiii._

She doesn't fool herself, not in the same way his father has. She knows very well what's happened to William, what will happen to him. (She blinks away the tears, breathes in heavily.)

When Lady Edith is asleep and his father is home, when the lights are out and everyone is dreaming, she opens the door to his room and watches him sleep. Sleeping, she reminds herself, he's always just sleeping.

She thinks of all the things she could say to him. She thinks of all the things she should have done for him. She thinks he can't truly leave this house, his family, her. It isn't fair, she thinks bitterly. He's too young, she thinks, too innocent. It isn't fair.

She sits down next to his bedside, brushes the hair from his forehead.

"You're a hero, you know?" She says hoarsely, because it's the only thing she can think to say.

"Of course," she adds, "you were always a hero."

She weaves her fingers through his, though she knows she ought not to.

"You always had a hero's heart."

_xiv. _

She follows Mrs. Patmore up the stairs, though her heart feels as though it's made of lead – dragging her down.

She wills herself not to cry when they say their vows, when they exchange rings. It isn't her place. His mother, she thinks, would cry if she was here.

It's mothers who cry at weddings, she tells herself. So she can't. She just can't.

So she holds herself very still, lead heart sinking between the floorboards, and holds in all her tears.

_xv._

But then he's gone and she cries all night.

_xvi._

A week later, she hears the sound of the piano down the hall and she runs, losing all composure, to the servants hall.

But it's another servant, Michael, and all she can do is glare at him.

"Do you not," she snaps, "have any work to do?"

Once he's run off, she sits in front of the piano. Her fingers are blind and stupid, she thinks, unable to even imagine how he plays – how he played at all.

After that outburst, the servants stay away from the piano for half a year. ("Unless you _want_ Mrs. Hughes to bite off your head," she overhears Mrs. Patmore say.) But the absence of the sound only makes her miss him more.

_xvii. _

They had Christmases without him, of course, but this is the first when she knows he's gone for good.

She opens her drawer, brings out the presents. A housekeeper's pay is better than a housemaid's, but it's still nothing to brag about. And so she had taken to buying her gifts throughout the year, when money allowed it. She had bought something small for O'Brien and something smaller for Mrs. Patmore. An old brooch of hers – plain, simple, nothing fancy – for Anna. Mr. Carson's, as always, had been the most expensive. A novel. She had thought, at the time, that if she could force him to set aside some time for reading, he'd allow himself to relax just a bit. That's what he really needed most.

She pulls out the book, but freezes when she sees what's underneath it.

The gloves.

She had knit him gloves earlier that year. She wasn't sure they were the right size, wasn't sure they'd fit –

And now she'll never know.

He had told her, once, that his hands got cold and so she'd thought –

She pulls the gloves over her hands, they're too big on her, but that was expected.

She concentrates on the empty spaces, the gaps beyond her fingertips.

Nothing, she thinks, will ever fill them. Not completely.

_xviii._

"Do you mind if I join you?" Mr. Carson asks her, adjusting his hat. "I think we're going the same way," he mumbles. If she was going anywhere else, she would have smiled at him. Instead, she says nothing – she doesn't trust herself to speak.

He watches her go through the fence, weave through the leaves, the grass, the rows of stone. He watches her stand before his grave, lay her flowers down.

When he comes to stand beside her, she's sobbing openly. He's never seen anything like this from her; he doesn't know what to do. All he knows is that it breaks his heart.

"Did – Did you love him?" He asks in a whisper, stupidly. He shouldn't have asked, he thinks, it's all too clear.

"Do you," she replies, wiping away the tears, "love Lady Mary?"

He reaches out for her hand, laces her fingers through his, squeezes it softly.

Neither let go.

* * *

><p><em>I wish these two had received more scenes. I always thought Mrs. Hughes devotion - though more subtle - for William complimented Mr. Carson's dedication towards Lady Mary. Hopefully I did everyone justice!<em>


End file.
